“Compassionate” Democrats use criminal EPA to deny Native American tribe the right to earn a living

The Democratic Party has long since sold out to Leftist ideology, which dominates all political thinking and actions no matter who it hurts.

So, when you hear representatives of the Party of the Donkey claim they are the ‘most compassionate’ of all Americans, you have to weigh that claim against the party’s policy objectives of the moment: If it is politically expedient to be ‘compassionate,’ then so be it, but if it’s not, then political and policy objectives will always come first.

That Democratic Party truth is what makes it possible for its representatives to deny Native Americans, whom they claim to care the most about, the right to earn a decent living on their own land, and if they have to use the power of one of the most corrupt and overly powerful federal agencies to do so, more’s the better.

As The Daily Caller reports, states along the West Coast are using Environmental Protection Agency regulations to prohibit members of the Crow Tribe from utilizing its energy resources to put more of its people to work and reduce their overall dependence on the federal government.

Led by Washington, the states are working to prevent Crow Tribal officials from producing coal in particular, C.J. Stewart, a tribal member and co-founder of the National Tribe Energy Association, told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works last week.

The old ‘environment over capitalism’ angle again so Democrats can keep more people under the government’s thumb. Never mind that the Crow Tribe is dependent upon the production of coal in order to survive.

“Tribal economies face many obstacles to success, and currently the economy of the Crow Tribe is facing a critical crisis,” he told GOP Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wy., and the other committee members.

“While we are blessed with untold mineral wealth in oil, coal, and gas on the Crow reservation,” he continued, “regulatory roadblocks and political crisis force us to languish in poverty.”

He noted further that his tribe is suffering from a staggering 70 percent unemployment rate.

Using the EPA as an economic weapon

The Daily Caller noted further that the Crow Tribe depends very heavily on the production of energy from coal and gas in order to maintain some semblance of viability. And now Leftists living comfortably in western coastal states are preventing these Native Americans from being able to do the same.

The Tribe has about 13,000 members spanning three states – Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Energy companies are the biggest employers on the reservation. Outside of revenues from coal, the tribe relies on federal and state funds – taxpayer dollars – to employ about 900 people.

Stewart pointed to Section 401 of the EPA-managed Clean Water Act as preventing his people from tapping into more of their own natural resources. The section allows states to apply water quality protections on activities that are otherwise permitted by the federal government.

Stewart told the Senate committee that there are more coal reserves in the United States than anywhere on the planet, but thanks to the EPA or presidential monument designations throughout the West – where much of it is buried – the coal remains inaccessible. That includes Crow land.

He went on to tell senators that coal “mined by the Crow Nation is preferred by high efficiency, low emission power plants that are currently in operation or under construction worldwide” – something that environmentalist Leftists should approve of.

The National Sentinel reports that the Trump administration has steadily rolled back reams of onerous job-killing regulations. But the sheer volume of them makes for slow going. Hopefully, Stewart’s testimony will light a fire under the president’s EPA to step in and help the Crow Nation make itself less dependent on Washington for its survival. It’s obvious “compassionate” Democrats in the coastal states aren’t going to help them.